I was chatting with a friend, Stephen, on Facebook yesterday about Star Trek and Star Wars and Batttlestar Galactica and Babylon 5 and Firefly and Stargate, well you get the picture.  And what I learnt about it was not only does he have a bloody good knowledge of the Star Trek universe but also a few little tips about research.  One of the projects that I, with Owen, am working on is set in a universe where mankind has ventured out into space and met a multitude of alien species and we have starships of various shapes and sizes as well as space stations, and as a writer of similar intergalactic escapades he shared a few little tips about how he does he’s research, and a lot of it is spent watching these shows and looking at how the technology works and the everyday difficulties of surviving in space (when I’ve tried this before I’ve got into the film/TV show and forgotten that I’m supposed to be making notes) To me these are the things that give a universe depth.   In Nathan Lowell’s series about the life of an orphan who joins kind of space age freight hauliers and there are a lot of little bits on how the ships are maintained.  These stories are really, really cool, so please check out the link >>>>>>  http://solarclipper.com/about/

It was a good conversation that we had which gave me plenty to think about and really created some good little ideas.  As I’ve mentioned before I think depth is a massive component of a universe that a story is set in.  It’s all good and well having a strong plot and/or characters but if the world around them is weak then the reader may feel like they are loosing out.  This is one thing I find with Scott Sigler’s Galactic Football League series.  With each book we learn more and more about the wider universe and that depth is something that me and Owen need to weave into our stories.